Call it "internalization," "learning by heart," or simply "memorization," it's an important part of law school for those intending to work at their highest levels and earn grades that correspond to those efforts. Commitment of the rules, definitions, exceptions, and other essentials to memory, so that these words, phrases, maxims and even templates for persuasive arguments become an integral part of your legal vocabulary, is required to achieve the liberating degree of instant recall you will need during exams.
Need?
Yes, in order to spend your precious limited exam answering time on the point-scoring activities of analysis and cogent writing, you need to be in a position to spend no appreciable time groping for rules of law. These should flow from your fingertips like water from a spring.
Read more about using your memory to your great advantage by clicking on the links below.
This advice comes from the College of Law at the University of Idaho. "As a law student, you must learn and remember (memorize) vast quantities of information. Depending on your personal learning styles, there are many methods you can draw upon to help yourself learn material and then recall it in class, on law school exams, on the bar exam, and even in law practice." Most of the information on this University of Idaho page is based on Professor Michael Hunter Schwartz’s excellent book, Expert Learning for Law Students.
There's (much, much) more to law school than memorization! However, you do need to learn many definitions, rules and "checklists" by heart in order to function at your personal best level on exams. Here are some mnemonic techniques to facilitate memorization of large quantities of material.